


A Little Night Music

by desla_be



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Batb elements, Canon Elements, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mystery, Slow Burn, mention of trauma, poto elements, sandor is confused about romance but he tries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29600505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desla_be/pseuds/desla_be
Summary: After fleeing from a horrible crime, Sansa, desperate for a place to stay, breaks into a house in the middle of the night. She thinks it’s abandoned. It doesn’t take very long before she learns that someone else has already been living there.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 33
Kudos: 64





	1. The Intruder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry in advance for historical errors! I’ve done (and continue to do) a LOT of research but there’s always the possibility of making mistakes.

There lay the unsuspecting house. 

Sansa crept around the dwelling, her feet slipping through wet blades of glass whilst the hem of her gown caught on bone-thin twigs and dry brush. Her clothes were long past the point of hairline rips. She hadn’t had the capacity to pack a second gown into her satchel in her haste to abandon the manor on the hill, but she’d managed to grab some sewing materials, and that would have to make do. 

There was something terribly _eerie_ about the shadow that the moonlight cast on the boarded windows, yet she made herself go closer. 

The haggard condition of the house is what drew her to it in the first place, frankly: the rampant, overgrown foliage, the panels that chipped in some places and were entirely missing in others, the fact that she’d observed it half a hundred times and hadn’t seen light inside _once_. It was the ugliest building in the city, she was sure of it. It was secluded, and obviously deserted, and while the thought of staying in an abandoned, broken down house filled her stomach with unease, it also meant that she’d be safe. No one would be coming here. No one would find her. Or so she hoped.

Sansa shot a glance behind her back to ensure that no one was following her, wrapped her hand around the brass door handle and turned. Her heart palpitated in her chest as the rusted hinges squeaked, though in her gut she knew that this was going to be the safest place for her. No one in their right mind would live here— no one would be coming _here_. 

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her— to the utmost displeasure of the hinges, which squeaked angrily again— careful to not make a sound as she pulled her knife from her satchel in a bout of paranoia. _Yes_ , she was convinced that the house was abandoned, but… but there was the fragment of a possibility that it wasn’t, as there was always the possibility to be surprised. Her gut had not proven to be all that reliable, after all! If someone was hiding about here in this mangy, tattered refuge, she would _have to_ be prepared to pounce on them. 

The floorboards shifted under her feet as she made her way deeper into the house, timid step after timid step through a firm blackness; there really was not a beam of moonlight that trespassed into the house. She felt around with her hands for the walls, allowing herself to be led where she might, and when she knew she was finally in solitude in this newfound place of sanctuary, she would light her candle and look around. 

It took every ounce of courage to make her way through the blackness that could’ve only been the kitchen and the living space, and her nerves were still shot as a madwoman’s even as she sat down on a tattered sofa. There was no guarantee that she wouldn’t be found here, but at least she wasn’t running anymore. She crossed her legs and pulled her leather satchel into her lap, and once she was settled her fingers drifted instinctually up to the rose pendant at her neck, smoothing the metal with her skin and recovering her breath in a lousy attempt at silence. 

Only when Sansa had finally managed to make that pounding organ in her chest settle, when she’d successfully convinced herself of what needed to be at least _temporary_ safety did she hear the floorboards in the hall creak. Loudly. 

Her heart turned to ice in her chest and she dared not even breathe, petrified to give anything away in case the creature who cohabited the space did not yet know where she lurked. 

Unfortunately her lung’s demand for oxygen because victorious over her desire to stay quiet, and she was quickly sounding again. Gasping in the darkness, sputtering for her satchel and that thing in it that would protect her as she knew it was capable, she drew her knife out and scrambled for a match in her bag, biting her tongue fiercely to stop the scream that sought to wrench free from her throat. The location of whoever else was in the house was unbeknownst to her— for, whether it was the sound of her own heart racing in her chest or their own muted footsteps, she could hear nothing of them! 

Sansa could feel burning tears welling in her eyes as she pleaded with the matchbox’s flint, clouding a vision that was already impossibly obscured by the house’s blackness. The match almost didn’t catch under her sweaty grip, but when it did, she was quick to spread the flame to her candle. 

The floorboards creaked again, quicker, as her candle flickered rays of light into the room, sounding further away than they had the first time. The figure had retreated. 

Sansa threw herself to her feet, her knife in one hand and the candle in the other. She backed up against the wall that faced the hallway so she could see the most of the space, but even then it was only a dim flicker— the light from her candle barely illuminating her own feet. Her heartbeat was so fierce that she could feel her pulse beating madly in her ears, head aching, all but paralyzed wondering where the other person— or creature— in the house was lurking; even if they were in front of her, Sansa cursed her candle, she would not be able to see them.

A door closed, and the floorboards creaked again, and then she could see the shadow of a figure much bigger than her approaching, much more timidly than it had in the darkness. The figure stood frozen at the edge of the hallway, and Sansa clutched her knife even tighter, wondering if she’d be able do this again if she had to. 

“Who are you?” came the voice attached to the figure that stood in blackness. 

“Who’s there?” Sansa whispered, and after realizing that she failed to speak over the loud thrumming of the blood in her head, she called out louder, “Who’s there?” 

“You don’t have to be afraid,” the shadow said, and while it might’ve been something kind, any hints of gentleness were replaced with a stone cold _rasp_ of a voice that could belong only to a man. “I will not harm you.”

Sansa gulped, completely unmoved and monumentally more nervous as she observed the _size_ of the shadow he cast. “Who are you?” 

“Sandor,” he said plainly. “Who are you?” 

Sansa didn’t answer, and then he was coming closer. 

She stuck her knife out. A warning. 

He put his hands up, she saw, even though he was still just a tall figure. He put his hands up... as though _she_ were the threat in the room. “I told you that I wouldn’t harm you,” he said. 

There was something in his voice that she thought was peculiar… He sounded… Sansa stepped forward, carrying the candle ahead of her and holding it out so that she could see him. For the span of a single heartbeat he was illuminated, which was a terribly insufficient amount of time to process a clear image of his face. All that she could make out were the blackness that surrounded his head, the glimmer of her flame on his teeth as he grimaced at her, and a flash of red— _old_ red; aged: the tawny, rusty color of dried blood. 

“Don’t point that at me!” he flinched back at the sway of her flame, and she didn’t see any more of him. 

The sound of his voice sent a shiver racing down her spine. She thought it odd that he should be more afraid of a candle than of a knife, but she withdrew her light anyway. A fraction of her fear died away as she held onto the candlestick, however replaced by confusion. 

“You’re afraid of fire,” Sansa said quietly, and it was almost a question. 

For a moment he didn’t say anything, and then, sharply enough to make her shiver, “Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing here?” 

Sansa cringed at the sound; she wasn’t used to language like that at the manor. Sometimes when some of her uncle’s guests (men, more often than not) would use language like that freely amongst each other when they thought they were alone, but apart from those secretive occurrences, she was unaccustomed to hearing such foulness. 

He sounded… young, almost. Not young like a child, but certainly not old like a man. There was a boyish, steely scratch to his voice that reminded her of her older brother. _Brothers_ , she mended quickly— she’d had _two_ older brothers. Sansa’s chest stung bitterly at the thought of them, and her mouth went dry. 

“I am sorry,” said Sansa. “I needed somewhere to stay. I thought that this house was abandoned.” 

“It is,” he mumbled, “in the legal sense.” He was still only a dark shadow, though she could see in that shadow that he was cringing away from her and any light that her candle dared to emit. He was _very_ afraid of fire. “Answer me. Who are you?” 

“I...” she pondered for a moment, and then pushed away the thought. Her head was still hazy from the events of the previous few days, but she knew at the very least that while she was still coming up with a plan of action for herself and her safety, it was best not to throw her true name around with strangers. “What do you mean it ‘is’ abandoned? Don’t you live here?” 

“Yes,” he said, stopping short. “Sort of. I spend my time here and I sleep here, and all of my things are here, but it’s not _my_ house. Don’t own it at least, didn’t pay a penny for it.” As she stared at him, the vastness of his frame made her revisit her assumptions about his age.

“Well... where’s your family?” 

“Where’s yours?” he spat back and shifted his weight, making the floorboards creak. “Think I’m going to tell you where the bodies are buried before you tell me your first name?” 

The mention of bodies made her cold again, and any flurry of a thought regarding her family she shoved away hard. 

“I’m...” her hands were shaking, and she almost dropped the candle. She _knew_ she shouldn’t tell him her name. She _knew_ it. She knew it, but if she refused to tell him anything about herself, he might force her to leave, and she couldn’t bear the thought of going back out into the night. The easiest question to answer would be this one. “My apologies, it was ill-mannered of me to ask. I’m Sansa,” she dipped her head, offering him politeness as though it were anything now but a farce. 

The shoulders that belonged to his shadow softened, and he waited a long moment before responding. “Sansa,” she could see him turn slightly to her, and as her name filtered roughly through his steely, scratching voice, the little hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “What happened to you?” he asked curiously, and once more it was _nearly_ polite, but the cold, mannerless delivery made her question his intent. 

Sansa swallowed. Memories that she didn’t want to think about clouded her mind— memories as old as the last time that she saw her mother and father, and memories as young as two days ago: tipped-over wine and broken glass on the carpet, tears in her corset, thick and sticky blood staining her pale fingers a permanent red. The sweat licked her palms again, and before she could comprehend what was happening, a loud creak cleared her vision. 

The candle was out of her hands and into his, though he was holding it so far away from his body that it nearly looked like it was floating all by itself. 

“My fault for asking then.” 

“I am sorry,” Sansa said numbly, wiping her hands on her dress and reaching forward, avoiding the large shapes of his closed hand as she pulled the candle back to herself. She thought she could see him settle in relief when he didn’t have to hold it anymore. 

“You can stay here if you need to,” he said. “Not my house after all, so I’m not in any position to toss you out, am I?”

Sansa nodded, feeling a weight lift off her chest that had been there much longer than her time in this house. The notion of sharing the space with a stranger did not entice her... however the alternative was, again, returning to the blackness of the streets with nothing but a candle and a flimsy blade to protect herself. At least _here_ she knew that one of those things set himon edge, and if she had to spend the night sitting up with a dripping candle in her hands to fend him off, she would, and she would survive. 

“You can sleep in my room,” he mumbled, contempt in his voice that he didn’t even _try_ to mask as any proper host would have when opening their home. “Or— where I’ve been sleeping. I’ll sleep out here.” 

“Please,” she said, “surely I can take the sofa.”

“No, you can’t. Wouldn’t want to be out in the open with a murderer walking the night, anyway,” he laughed. “No lock on the front door, as I’m sure you noticed when you broke in.”

Sansa, transfixed on that _other_ thing that he’d said, hardly noticed the latter comment. Her lungs turned to stone in her chest. “A… what?” 

“Gossip,” he waved his hand through the darkness. “Didn’t you hear? There’s a _murderer_ on the loose,” the mockery in his voice did not slip past her. “I hate the people in this fucking city, they never tire. You’ll sleep down the hall, I’ll sleep out here.” 

He seemed very decided about his arrangements, so Sansa didn’t protest as he gave himself more space from her, angling awkwardly from the candlelight, and led her down the hall. 

What must’ve been ‘his room’ was right by the back door she’d entered from; he’d heard her approach from the moment she’d stepped onto the front porch. 

He stopped a few feet away from her, defensive stance crystal clear even in the blackness of his shadow. 

Sansa tried to see more of him, but his efforts were practiced, and his height wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. He, on the other hand, could surely see her perfectly well with her candle right in front of her face. 

He kept a distance from her and her flame even in the hallway where he was free to move around— even in the hallway where he loomed a head and a half higher than her. He could’ve pushed her and her little candle over with his baby finger, and yet something was making him terribly afraid. Sansa didn’t think it could’ve been the flame alone causing his fear, but she didn’t have the capacity to concern herself with that at present. 

“The bed’s small and I’m sure it’ll feel like shit under your back as it does under mine. Good luck making it through the night in one go. This is the toilet, should you need it,” he pointed directly across from the bedroom. 

“Thank you,” she said, making herself smile under the belief that he could see her as she made herself forget his profanity. 

“Tomorrow,” he began, demeanor going very careful, “when I wake, I’ll knock on your door. You don’t have to open it when I do, but don’t open it before. There’s a lock inside.”

Sansa gazed at the shadow of him, puzzled. “Why?” she asked. 

“Just…” he paused, and she could practically _hear_ him holding his breath. “Do as I say,” he exhaled, finally. “I’ll knock in the morning, you can come out then. Fine?”

“All right,” she said, her heart racing anew as she pondered what the reason for that questionable request might’ve been. She was thinking about what harm might befall her if she ignored his rules when he started to walk away. 

“Goodnight,” she called out after him, “and thank you."

“Goodnight,” he replied and there was that hesitation in his voice again before his shadow disappeared into the blackness of the hall. 

Sansa stepped into the bedroom with her candle held in front of her, pushing the door closed behind her and locking it quickly. 

There were things everywhere— miscellaneous pieces of old furniture stacked high and carelessly, boxes piled on top of each other, nearly reaching the ceiling— all arranged in a surprisingly careful manner. Were these things his, she wondered, or had they been here even before him? 

As she stepped deeper into the room, she found the bed, and it became obvious to her why he didn’t like it very much. It was a bed made for a _child!_ — blatantly too small for his exceptional height and frame. 

_Much more suitable for me_ , Sansa thought as she sat down on it, digging her way under a thin quilt. She didn’t bother removing her cloak, or even her shoes (although it made her supremely uncomfortable to wear shoes in the bed, there was no telling if she would have to leave again at the drop of a hat! It was better to be cautious.) 

Reaching over, she grabbed her leather satchel and pulled it under the bed frame, hiding it beneath the blanket’s overhang. 

With a soundless wisp of breath, she extinguished her candle and set it down. 

At first, she was shocked by the warmth that emanated from the mattress and kissed her chilly legs through the cloak, but her alarm dissolved at the rememberance that this was _someone’s bed_ she was in. It wasn’t entirely odd that heat would remain; she’d come into the house in the middle of the night, and he… had been in here, laying in the bed, maybe asleep… in _this_ _bed_. Nothing about that was peculiar. 

What _was_ peculiar to her was being on a mattress that wasn’t her own, in a room that wasn’t her own. She was so used to having her own set of everything, and in the span of a few days, she didn’t have anything except for the things she’d managed to shovel into her satchel before escaping. 

Sansa curled her back against the wall and drew her knees up, holding herself.

There was something he’d said that made her eyes open up again, desolate in the swallowing blackness of the room. _Murderer_. There was a _murderer_. 

Sansa shivered, turning over. She forced her eyes to close, turning her face into the pillow. 

It had a scent on it, as did the blanket under her chin. It was, again, alarming for her to be so intimate with someone else’s bedding— and a stranger at that! The scent he’d left on the fabric was sharp and almost intrusive to her. If she needed additional clarification to his status (besides living in this unpalatable excuse for a home, and from his wording there were even implications that this was a _preferable_ alternative), the obvious fact of the dirty and offensive bedding made his circumstances painfully apparent to her. 

The strangest of it _all_ was that there was… well… a sweetness to it, of mutually faint and unmistakable nature. She didn’t recognize the soft and barely-there scent, but it was almost strong enough to distract her from the rest of the rank fabric. 

Sansa pulled her cloak further over her face. 

The mattress was as he’d described it: hard and lumpy beneath her. However, as this was the first sense of security she’d happened upon for days, it would be worth it to wake up with a tender spine. 

_A murderer_ , she thought again, turning over in the bed. Gossip had not gotten to her as she’d been for the last few days, and she would have to find out what else people were saying tomorrow, if he would be agreeable in telling her. 

She also couldn’t rest her mind of his strange request not to leave the room. What if she did it anyway? Surely he hadn’t meant to deny her use of the _toilet_ without his explicit consent. It was a most bizarre thing to ask of a houseguest, she thought, even if she filled that term unconventionally. His hosting skills were unconventional to _her_ as well, of course!— his unpalatable profanity and the way that he’d regarded her still made her stomach churn, of course that could’ve been any one of the other calamities she’d suffered over the last couple of days. 

Something nudged her in the back. Sansa gasped, sitting up with a start and drawing to the head of the bed, her back hitting the stacked clutter behind her. 

After a long moment of motionless silence, she, realizing the object in question was clearly inanimate, reached out. It took a few tries, but her hand passed over something soft and… fluffy. Two raised velvet patches materialized under her fingers, and then a third... and when she found the fourth she knew at once what it was, and the familiarity of it sent an ache straight into her chest. Sansa tugged at the worn velvet excess bits, feeling her heart sink. 

It was a stuffed animal. 


	2. The Houseguest

Sansa sat in the little bed with the quilt over her legs, her brown satchel sitting below her on the floor with its contents scattered. 

The stuffed animal, which turned out to be a pale grey elephant, she had put on the floor as well. It was old and smelly and far too personal of a thing to have in the bed with her while she slept.

Would her housemate give her the bed again tonight? If so, how was she to give him back his raggedy cotton belonging, if she were to give it to him at all? She didn’t want it in here with her, necessarily, though it would perhaps be better to simply leave it where it was and avoid the subject. It was a strange thing certainly to address a man about his stuffed animal. 

Speaking of her housemate, he really was of the most ill-mannered sort to use profanity right in front of her and to make her wait half of a century for him to knock on the door (for whatever _inconceivable_ reason) and let her out on a _whim!_ There may have been something to be said about his haste to offer her the only bedroom… if it were not for his eerie request to lock herself in until further notice. Of course, it wasn’t an offense of his that she’d woken up so early, and he certainly wasn’t the cause for her lack of sleep. 

Sansa leaned against the tall, tattered wooden structure behind the bed and scribbled in her journal, trying to make the time pass more quickly as she waited. The window in the room was boarded up, but there was enough light that came through for her to just be able to see what she was doing. Surely he could not still be asleep, for it was... nearly noon. She wondered if it was possible that he had left the house. 

Only then it came. 

Sansa jumped in the bed— obviously having known the knock was going to come at some point or another wasn’t sufficient preparation for her nerves after all. She made her way to the door, creeping quietly in some bout of paranoia over him having verified that, _no_ , there was no lock on the front door and it really could’ve been _anyone_ sneaking in. 

It had been hours that she’d waited for him. Perhaps her housemate... had been murdered!— and now _thieves_ had come to loot the place and murder her as well. Or… or perhaps it was even... the _police_. She stood there stiffly, trying not to make a sound.

Another knock, louder. “You can come out,” came that identifying rasp, and she knew it was him. 

Sansa flicked the lock out, pulling the door open with a short exhale. 

She was shocked to discover that the hallway was still dark. Not as dark as the previous night, but certainly not bright enough to imply that it was nearly noon. 

He stood on the other side of the door, alarmingly tall and broad… not much of a shadow anymore. Sansa’s stomach filled with butterflies. She’d been terrified last night when she couldn’t see him, and now that she could… he was _vastly_ more intimidating. 

“Didn’t know whether you’d brought food,” he said, starting off into the kitchen like he was already tired of looking at her, “but I made you something anyway.” 

Sansa followed him to a small wooden table, which displayed two ceramic plates. They were both adorned with blueberries, a generous cut of crusty bread, and slices of yellow cheese. She had brought food for herself, limited as it was, though looking at the plates he’d arranged for them made her mouth water. 

He sat at one of the chairs, and Sansa took the other. He didn’t have a fork for himself and he didn’t offer one for her. 

Sandor broke his piece of bread in half, eliciting a pleasant crunchiness as it ripped apart and dusted the table with crumbs. 

That moment, naturally, she chose to look up at him. At first, she could only properly see his right side, illuminated by large cracks in the window to her left, and for a minute she was nearly stunned. Not exactly in the good way, however nor did she find him entirely disagreeable. It was simply that as she studied his features— onyx-colored hair in waves, high cheekbone, pale grey eyes transfixed on his plate (she realized that his eyes happened to be the same color as the little elephant) she was… surprised. He hadn’t been what she’d expected. 

Much less so when she saw the other half. 

Sansa had been trying to understand why the other side was so much darker than the other— _too_ much darker, even in the drought of light in the room. And when he turned to the window, for the briefest moment, she understood. The other side was _horrific_ , nothing short of it. It looked like he’d been burned... only that put it too softly; he’d been _ruined_. His cheek was a blistered mess, there was something wrong with his mouth, and chunks of his hair seemed to have had been ripped out. 

Sansa swallowed and looked down at her plate, sitting perfectly still. If she’d managed an appetite, there was nothing left of it now. 

“I didn’t poison it, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said her housemate plainly. 

She made herself meet his eye. “Sorry?”

“You haven’t taken a bite,” he nodded to her plate. “If you’re worried that it’s poisoned, it isn’t, and you can rest assured that if I was going to murder you I wouldn’t have done it at the expense of my own food.” 

She stared at him for a long moment. “Are you reasoning that you wouldn’t poison me because... it would be a waste of food?” 

He paused while chewing. “Aye. Something like that.” 

She might have laughed, if it were not for the real reason she didn’t want to eat. 

Sansa cleared her throat. She reached for the berry she’d been eyeing. It was tart on her tongue and her lips curled under the taste. 

“Did you find the bed to your liking?” he asked. 

“It was perfectly suitable.” Sansa ripped a chunk from her bread. He hadn’t provided them with handkerchiefs either, and she was at a loss for how to politely wipe her hands or the corner of her mouth. She struggled to make it appear natural as she dusted her fingers, or as she dragged the tip of her thumb over her lip, but he didn’t give the slightest regard to indicate that he’d given notice to either of those indiscretions. 

He _did_ _snort_ at her comment, however, and she felt her eyes widen at the sound— that he would make such a noise while they dined together! Sansa pursed her lips. 

“Perfectly suitable. Is that so?” 

“Yes... I slept very well. I might ask,” she began quietly, “if you will allow it, the circumstances for your request last night. I had hoped you might… elaborate.” 

She watched as his chest stiffened and instantly regretted saying anything at all. 

Sandor sighed, resolving to play with the berries on his plate. He permitted himself a long moment before speaking next. “My father lets me stay here… conditionally. He visits, sometimes, and my brother as well… and I never know when they’re going to show up. In that situation I thought it preferable for both of us that they didn’t cross paths with you.”

_Other people_ _with reason and permission, of a sort, to enter the house whenever they liked._ Sansa’s stomach turned. “What are the conditions that you are required to uphold?” 

He continued twirling the berry under his fingers. An odd smile deformed his mouth, lacking the jovial enthusiasm of a pleasant expression. “You ask a lot of questions.” 

A part of her thought that she shouldn’t be so blatantly inquisitive, so long as he was going to allow her to coexist with him, and so long as he was offering her food. However a larger part of her thought it was her right to ask questions regarding the habitat in which they would be coexisting in, for however long that might be. Especially if he was going to say things that raised questions as to her safety and not clarify what exactly he meant, and the potential severity of either of their situations, which may now become inherently intertwined suppose he was being truthful. 

“What I do for my father,” his voice began to lack for stability now, “will not impair your safety, so long as he and my brother don’t know that you’re here.”

Sansa gave him a slight nod, her eyes still locked onto the table. “And will they not question your sleeping on the sofa suppose they do intrude?” 

“I didn’t sleep on the sofa.”

“Then where—”

His eyes hardened impossibly and Sansa was fearful of the downward twist of his mouth. 

Sansa glanced quickly away. “Forgive me.” 

He sighed again, rubbing his eyes. “So,” Sandor cleared his throat, “what did you do?” 

“Sorry?” her heart began to quicken in her chest. 

“What sort of law did you breach that you were left optionless enough to break into my house in the middle of the night?” 

“I would prefer not—”

“Well you certainly don’t seem like the _promiscuous_ sort,” he didn’t even _attempt_ to veil his gaze on her figure, “therefore I doubt you’re whoring yourself. And by the looks of that handsome bag you carry, money wouldn’t be much of a problem anyway. Are _you_ the murderer in town? Is that it?” He didn’t wait for a response, laughing to himself instead before carrying his dish over to the counter. 

Sansa swallowed, touching the berry on her plate and watching it roll to the center. “For a subject so serious, you don’t seem to harbor very much alarm.” 

He turned to her, figure hulking in the darkness, and at once she understood why a person of _his_ physique might not have to be frightened.

“I’m not afraid of any _murderer_ ,” said her housemate. “No one’s coming here, anyway, and if some jumped-up shit thinks he’s going to get someone in the streets, you can be assured that he’s not trying his luck with me.” 

Sansa sat still. Again, she thought that his state of mind on the matter was quite justified. She took a breath. “My uncle allowed me to stay with him when my family... died. Only… recently… it became so that staying there was no longer safe, and I had to make other arrangements.” 

“And these were your _other arrangements?_ ” 

“I had the impression that the lot was abandoned.” 

“So you said. And now that you know it isn’t abandoned, what will be your arrangements from here?” 

Sansa bit down on the tip of her tongue. “Forgive me, I had not—”

“Only that I don’t imagine living in this shithole with me is going to suit your fancy very well. Oh, don’t think me so stupid that I cannot infer your rank from your appearance alone— this is _shit_ compared to the lifestyle that you’re accustomed— And while you’re at it,” he added, “spare me the insult of pretending that you were not revolted the singular moment you saw my face.” 

It was a peculiar thing to hear _him_ speak of being insulting, and yet at his statement, her eyes shot directly up to his. Only for a moment before she felt her cheeks blaze with heat at his rage-filled expression, and she set her gaze timidly back to the table’s rustic wooden surface. 

Nevertheless, Sansa would not hear of it. “You are mistaken, I assure you—”

He laughed aloud at that. “Mistaken? You can’t bear to _look_ at me!” 

It was true that it was difficult... though not for the reasons that he suspected. It was his eyes that she really didn’t want to see, the rest of it she could get past, however the eyes were the hardest. A long moment passed between them, her uncomfortably still with her hands in fists over her knees, him across from her, anger unstoppered, before he spoke again. 

A fraction of his rage fell from his tone. “You’re not unique in your opinions— otherwise I wouldn’t live _here_ with all the fucking windows boarded, would I?— though do not insult me by lying about it to my face.” 

Her heart raced madly, though she made herself look up at him. Those _eyes_ — they were hard grey stones, and in the drought of light that touched his left side, she could vaguely see the atrocity of his cheek. “I’m dearly sorry if I’ve offended you,” said Sansa, more out of propriety than genuineness, and still nervous that he was going to pounce on her for it. 

He didn’t pounce, however. He only looked at her sternly for a moment, expression unchanging— as though he were contemplating the integrity of her proclamation— before he got up from the table and disappeared down the hall. 

She let out a short breath, rolling a berry beneath her forefinger as she contemplated going back to the small bedroom and hiding in solitude for the rest of the day. It’s not like she could go into the city, anyway. 

Her housemate appeared in the kitchen again shortly after, stopping at her side of the table. 

Sansa stood up before him, folding her hands. It hit her then _just how tall_ he was — she was certain she’d _never_ seen anyone quite so tall. 

He pulled something unceremoniously from the pocket of his trousers and set it on the table: a small metal tin. “A salve of oil and calendula,” he said. “There are cuts all over your hands; this will improve them.” 

She glanced down to her hands and spread her fingers apart, noticing all of the cuts herself for the first time. Again, she made herself look up at him, but only for a moment. “Thank you,” she said. “Sandor.” For the first time in the morning, or perhaps even the first time period, she saw him soften. 

It was his turn to look away from her. “It goes under the sink in the washroom, when you’re done.” 

Sansa nodded. He turned for the sofa and she sat back down in her chair, opening up the metal tin and laying the cap face-down on the table. 

The balm inside was pale orange and shining. She scraped a small bit of it onto her fingertip and rolled a thin layer over a shallow cut on the side of her hand. The skin of her hands had gotten mangled by broken glass the other evening, and though it had been three days, a few of the wounds still stung under the salve. 

From the corner of her eye Sansa she saw him settle onto the sofa, pulling a book into his lap. It surprised her, perhaps more than it should have, to consider that he might be literate, especially after he had emphasized their differences in circumstances so coldly. Sansa hadn’t had the room to pack as many books as she would have liked to, but she did fit into her satchel a journal for writing and drawing and a thin storybook with some of her favorite fairytales. She delighted in the possibility that there might be addional books here that she could read. 

The balm left her hands shiny with oils, but the cuts were less tight and gave her more comfortable dexterity. She placed the metal cap overtop and pushed it to the center of the table; later she would return it to the cabinet under the sink.

For a few moments she only sat there, fingers twiddling on the wooden table, looking around the room now that there was light to see. The interior walls were unfinished wooden planks, and stringy cobwebs gathered in the corners. There was an old coffee table in front of the sofa, and boxes piled around the edges of the room. The hearth looked like it hadn’t been used in years. 

Her housemate laid with his neck on the arm of the sofa and his legs bent on the cushions, his book propped open with one hand and resting on the fronts of his thighs. There was something very stunning about the serenity in his languor; something that she had not expected of a person who was so inherently… intrusive. 

Sansa played with a loose string on the sleeve of her gown. “What are you reading?” 

He peered at her through parted knees for a moment before trailing his gaze back to the paper. “What’s it to you?” 

She blinked _. Why_ she had thought to receive a polite answer out of him was inexplicable. Sansa sat quietly for a moment before stepping out of her chair. If her choices were to be in ill-mannered, taciturn company than she would much rather be alone. In _his_ bedroom. In _his_ house— although he neither owned nor laid claim to it. 

She turned to leave the room when he looked up from his book again. “It’s _The Fairy Ring. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_.” 

Sansa paused, casting a glance to his figure on the sofa. “ _Alice’s Adventures_ is one of my favorites.” 

Sandor sat up, sitting now with the unscarred side of his face hidden in the darkness and leaving only the ruined side available for inspection. “Got to go working soon, but you can borrow the book while I’m away. If it pleases you.” There was a glimmer to his expression that she’d not seen before, though the sight of his marred skin did him no favors, and any gentleness in his expression was surely ravaged by the rest of it. 

“What is it that you do for work?” 

He didn’t respond for a moment, and she trailed her gaze up to his eyes. Though there was an eerie detachment present that, again, made her regret ever having opened her mouth. She had spoken out of pure and innocent politeness and it had done nothing to suit either of their nerves— on the contrary, in fact, his features hardened impossibly and a face which was already grotesque to look upon became a sight absolutely worthy of nightmares.

“Forgive me. It was not my intention to make you uncomfortable. If you should prefer not to answer—”

“I work in the city.” 

“Oh,” she said, vowing to herself not to pry any further if she could help it. “And when will you be off?” Surely _that_ was not a nosy thing to inquire, was it?

He glanced at the clock. “Thirty-three minutes.” 

Sansa nodded. “When shall I expect you to return?”

His mouth hardened, and for a brief moment she expected him to become angry again… but the hostility she thought she’d detected was replaced with something of an entirely separate nature. 

“A while after dinner,” he said. “I’ll show you to the food before I go.” 

She nodded once more, folding her hands together where she stood by the other side of the sofa. 

“That would be lovely, thank you,” said Sansa. “I was not able to bring _Alice’s Adventures_ when I left, and I will delight in reading it again, if you should permit me.” 


	3. The Elephant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Sansa having very inconsistent and confusing feelings about a certain housemate.

The front door creaked open sometime in the middle of the night, and Sansa awoke with a start. 

She wrapped her fingers around her dagger’s grip, which she’d kept stored safely under the pillow, and waited to hear more as she looked into the darkness. 

Her housemate had left several hours earlier for work, whose nature he would not specify and which at the mere mention of he became very rigid. He offered no clues to her regarding his occupation, however before he left, he asked that she wait in the bedroom for him to leave so that he could… _ready himself_ , and Sansa had no choice but to oblige. When she reentered the living space, she saw that _Alice’s Adventures_ was sitting closed on the coffee table in front of the sofa. 

He’d done her the favor of showing her to the food: more crusty bread, salted meat, the container of berries and a wooden box filled with roasted chestnuts. She’d brought her own food— biscuits with butter and jam in between, tea leaves wrapped in cloth, smoked venison— and when it came time for her to sup, that’s what she ate, rather than dine him out of his own preserves. 

She’d read for a few hours, still managing fascinations about the manner of his literacy in her head— it didn’t seem right that he should be able to read. However what was even further front the realms of the expectable was that he read _fairytales_ , and the same ones as her at that! Perhaps she had judged him not to be the fairytale-reading sort of man because of his appearance, however his attitude did not suggest anything to that possibility, either! For someone who _looked_ like him to read such literature was one thing, however there was no accuracy to be gleaned from so quick an assumption— but for someone who _spoke_ so crudely, who was never mannered upon instinct... perhaps that had caused her to jump to the (apparently) incorrect conclusion that he’d never _opened_ a book, much less the books that _she_ favored. 

After her reading, Sansa had climbed into bed as she had the previous night, door locked, cloak wrapped over her gown, dagger within easy reach. What surprised her was how much more difficult it had been to sleep _alone_ in the house, rather than when she knew he was down the hall. She didn’t have any great trust for her housemate, and his company did not soothe her or give her enjoyment, although having him there was a thought much more appealing than being alone in a house with no _lock_ on the front door, for anyone to come in whenever they pleased. For all she knew, that could’ve been a perfectly accurate prediction of the situation at present!

At least, it was a possibility… until she heard his familiar rasping steel-on-stone voice in the hallway, producing a wretched noise that sent an ache mutually through her head and heart. Sansa had never heard anything like that voice... like a pin prickling down her spine, chilling the outsides but leaving the interior molten. 

After a moment, another type of noise emerged.

In the beginning it was a metallic sort of sound— like silverware clanging together… however it was more dull, muted, _slow_. What must’ve been two dozen pieces of metal scraping over one another, like some sort of chain, down the hall, deeper into the kitchen— dragging... until it halted. Over the next few moments she heard the metal objects clanging to the floor, as though her housemate had gotten bored or angry and had decided to amuse himself by throwing silverware across the room, or perhaps silver dishes. As she hadn’t thought he should be able to read, based on her own assumptions and on the implications he’d planted regarding an inferior rank, she didn’t think he should be able to afford such finery, but whatever the metal was, he had a lot of it. All of this, and not enough to give her the generosity of utensils at the table this past morning. 

A final clangor, a clash of metal and wood, and then it was over. There was another sound, dry on dry, wood scraping onto wood… and then silence. She waited a few more moments, the same measurable break between the previous two noised, but the space remained silent. 

Of course, there was no conceivable opportunity for Sansa to fall asleep again after that ruckus. She did assume it to be her housemate, because indeed she had heard his chilly, _agonized_ rasp in the hallway only a few moments prior— but mostly because no one had tried to break down the door and murder her. It was a small chance to bid resting through. 

Sansa tilted her cheek further down the pillow, her fingers going sweaty around the grip of her dagger. She curled into herself, wishing that she’d been able to sleep through the series of noises but not sure that the absence of them would’ve done much to help the fact that she was having trouble sleeping regardless. Her unconscious was no longer a friend to her, and it hadn’t been for some time, and the truth of it was that she only could’ve been asleep for minutes before her housemate returned and woke her up again just as soon. 

Another noise interrupted the silence which was already so fragile, coming from down the hall, of course. It was barely there, and she was able to hear it for certain within the small area that the house occupied— although she could not distinguish the meaning of it from where she was. 

With the sigh of a sleepless young lady, Sansa got out of the bed, curling under her own dark cloak tightly as she approached the door. She was very careful to be as quiet as possible as she pulled the lock out and let the door come open only a fragment. 

She poked her head out into the hallway, listening closely for the sound coming from the other room. A sharp noise came from down the hall, though clearly muffled behind fabric, and a tremulous series of breaths. 

It was… well, it sounded as though her housemate were in some sort of… agony. Perhaps he had been hurt at ‘work’. 

_He will compose himself,_ she thought, _he will recover. He does not require consolation from a stranger or a_ girl. Sansa drew back into the room, her hand on the door, ready to push it closed again… only… she couldn’t. Last night, perhaps she would’ve been able to… but after he’d given her the room, the salve for her cuts, his food… Her compassion sought to destroy her, but knowing that did not help bar her from acting upon empathy. 

She bit back a breath, holding her dagger under a fold in her coat, and took a step into the hallway. “Sandor?” 

He silenced himself at once, though after a moment she heard him fidgeting again— shifting. 

“Are you all right?” she asked, though she did not loosen her hold on the knife.

She walked further into the room, fingers against the wall to keep herself moving through the darkness. 

There was a sniffle, as quick as it was deep, and then a brief pause. “Fine. Go back to sleep.” 

He had been hurt, indeed, Sansa realized, sticking tight to her spot in the room, unable to feel any shade comfortable in such an unforgiving blackness. Her housemate was crying— if anything was clear to her, it was that— however the question in her mind stood at whether it was a bodily infliction or that of the heart. Either she could help with, if she really wanted to... of course his consent would be required in both cases as well, and based on their few interactions, it was an unlikely idea in her mind that she’d receive either suppose she were looking. 

Sansa couldn’t see an inch of him, no matter how passionately she squinted. The planked floor was cold beneath her stockings, and she crossed one foot over the other, holding herself under the cloak. The hearth should’ve been blazing bright on a night like this, but she didn’t dare ask him to make a fire for them. 

Another sniffle— he tried to hide the sound from her, she could tell, but she was so close and she heard it anyway. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in the presence of someone who was crying (much less a crying _man_ ) and she figured that so surely based on the fact that she had no idea what to do now. No, she didn’t think she was in the mind to console him. She’d been asleep, or at the very least managing _a sort of rest_ when he’d charged into the house, hadn’t even bothered to tell her that it was _him_ who’d come in after making all that noise. And now he was being short with her on top of it! Not worried about showing any gratitude to the fact that she’d come out of her bed _uncalled for_ at this _obscene_ hour of the night to check on him. 

Sansa bit back a huff, turning from him and heading straight back to the bedroom. 

However, she was out again in just another moment… because there was something else. 

The floorboards creaked under her feet as she entered the living room again. 

Her housemate had thought he was safe again, it seemed. He had not even listened for the door to close before he began slurring a short series of broken noises into his clothing, however when he heard the squeaking wood beneath her feet he made himself silent with a start. 

“Bugger me,” he said, and his rasping voice cracked then into bits of broken glass, “I thought I told you to go _back_ —”

Sansa pushed the stuffed elephant gently into his chest, however by the way he fumbled to take it from her, she knew she’d got him completely by surprise. It was a force of habit for her to curtsy to him as he sat crumpled on the sofa, although she knew perfectly that he could not see her. 


	4. The Bath

They didn’t talk about it the following morning. 

In fact, he didn’t say anything to her at all. 

Her housemate had rapped on her door and offered her food, though he was not even so polite as to dine there at the table with her! No, instead he sat on the sofa, leaning over a book with his plate of food in his lap. 

Whether it was the result of a mood he’d conjured all by himself or a consequence of being witnessed so vulnerably by her the previous night, Sandor did _not_ want to talk to her. The elephant was hidden from sight, as well. 

In the morning, after he’d permitted her to leave the room and before he’d given her something to eat, Sansa had twisted her hair up and pinned it into a bun. To her horror, it was already becoming oily and filthy at the roots, and it had only been a few days since her last bath! 

Her clothes were really starting to smell, too. None of her gowns could’ve fit in the satchel, and she hardly thought bringing one was at the top of her priority list… however not having anything else to wear was really beginning to make her itch! Of course, wearing dirty clothes meant becoming dirtier simultaneously, and she could’ve used a cleansing for certain… though there was no chance she was going to ask her most _ungrateful, disagreeable_ housemate to fashion a bath for her. 

That said, he didn’t have a tub for soaking anyway, so it wasn’t much of an option, was it? 

He had been right, though Sansa was loathe to admit, she was _not_ accustomed to this style of living. 

She didn’t have anyone to tend to her like she’d forever been used to, she couldn’t bathe when she wanted to, she wasn’t eating as much as she ought to have, and she was too afraid to even leave this awful house for fear of being snatched by the ‘predatorial townsfolk’ that her uncle had taught her to be afraid of, or being caught by the police and _arrested!_

Sansa would need to go into the city eventually, and preferably soon. She needed clothes to wear— preferably apparel that disguised her status— and there were several other things she would’ve liked to buy: more paper, sweets (she already missed the sweets from the manor!), oils and soaps for her hair, cloth for her menstruation. Only... she had never gone into the city alone before, and frankly the idea did not excite her. It was possible that he might agree to accompany her, and whether or not she would’ve chosen him as her escort didn’t change the fact that as of their coexistence in this house, he was her only connection, and therefore her only choice. 

Sansa stood up from her seat and brought the empty dish over to the wash basin. She’d never had to wash a dining dish in her entire life, it was quite _exactly_ what servants were for. She glanced at her housemate, who lay on his back again, knees up, and cleared her throat. “How do I make the water start?” 

Sandor looked up from the book splayed across his legs, peering at her as though she were the stupidest person he’d ever known. “Is that meant to be a jest?” he asked. 

She bit her lip. It wasn’t at all meant to be a jest. 

Her housemate sighed, sending one foot to the floor as he folded his book closed on a finger. He had the audacity to _roll his eyes_ at her. “There’s no running water in the kitchen. The pump is outside.” 

Sansa nodded, closing her hands around the dish. It would’ve been a lie to say that his attitude hadn’t already completely disheartened her, and truthfully her eyes even began to sting at his disapproval. Was she really as stupid as he made her out to be? Could it have not been simply that their circumstances had been different, and if that was the case, why did he _insist_ on treating her like she were so simple! Sansa made herself look at him, forcing politeness when she would’ve liked to shout at him. “Could you... direct me to it?” 

“Just leave it, I’ll wash it later.” 

“It’s just that I was also intending on acquiring some bath water.” 

His brow raised and he chuckled. “The lady wants a bath, does she? Already? Wagered you might’ve lasted longer than, what, three days without a proper cleanse?” 

She ignored the contempt in his reply and instead gave him a pleading look. 

His figure stiffened and his eyes remained transfixed on her. “Haven’t got a tub here, as I reckon you noticed. Best I can do for you today is a bucket and a rag.” 

Sansa nodded. “That will be lovely. And the matter of my clothes… I haven’t got a second gown to wear.” 

“Have you got another shift?” He looked to her figure at the mention of her garments. 

She shook her head. “But… I will be fine rewearing this one.” There was no alternative. At least she had clean underclothes to put on, she supposed. 

Her housemate stood up, abandoning his book of fairytales on the sofa cushion. 

Sansa placed her dish into the wash basin and folded her hands as he walked past her toward the back door. 

As he neared, she noticed that there were tears in his clothes, the majority of which were in the simple cream-colored shirt he donned, and tawny brown splotches. _Bloodstains_. Those were not the clothes he wore yesterday, and therefore she could not conceive a possibility that would compel him to put them on today in their apparent condition. She didn’t dare open her mouth about it this time. 

“Wait here,” he said, exiting the house through the second door. 

The room felt empty immediately upon his leave, and she was absolutely _loath_ to discover herself wishing for _him_ to come back! It was unfathomable! His company didn’t bring her much pleasure at all, however his presence in the house did make her feel much safer, which she could only attribute to the fact that he had not yet brought harm to her and seemed to prevent, both directly and indirectly, other outside harm from coming to her. 

The door opened again and he reappeared, a bucket between his hands. He carried it off to the water closet, rummaging around the room audibly for a short period before emerging back into the kitchen and heading directly back to his book. 

Her housemate pointed off. “Water’s there on the table, along with the rag and the soap. Reckon you don’t need my help to bathe as well, as your handmaidens surely did for you back in your castle,” he rasped, flipping through the pages without looking up. 

Sansa’s stomach roiled— the _mouth on him!_ She paused there a moment, thinking of a possible retort... although she thought better of that decision by the end of it and distracted herself by rushing down the hall. 

It was as he had said: the bucket of clean water and a bit of soap that lay on a cloth. She pushed the lock into the door and began tugging at the ties of her corset. 

It took around half of an hour overall. The water was cold, which was quite obviously nothing like the steaming baths she’d received in her chamber at Lord Baelish’s estate. Sansa used the soapy rag to sponge the parts she could not bear not to clean: her fingers, under her arms, her back, between her thighs, her feet— and left what she could dry, which wasn’t very much. She saved scrubbing her face and hair for last, knowing that soaking her hair was going to make her very cold. It had to be done, however, and she gave her best attempt at making it brief. She already longed for the next time she could use a real tub.

After wringing her hair out over the soapy bucket, Sansa twisted it up into a handful, pinning it into place on her head. 

For a moment she’d slipped into a panic wondering where she might find the drying towels, however shortly after, she remembered that he’d told her where they were: the cabinet beneath the sink, where the salve had gone.

Sansa found the towels, but there were other things in the cabinet that she must’ve overlooked the first time she’d opened it that caught her eye the second time around. He had a thick roll of bandage nearby, along with a container of clear liquid and a piece of cloth with a pair of needles laying on it. She wondered if the needles were for repairing all the holes he had in his clothes, although if that’s what he was doing it didn’t make sense to her why he would be wearing such garments with so many tears at present. 

She closed the cabinet and dried off with the towel, dreading the idea of redressing in her dirty shift, corset, and gown, but knowing that there was not another choice. To soothe herself, Sansa kept the strings a little looser than her handmaidens would’ve secured for her (although that was also attributed to the fact that she could not have pulled them so tight by herself), operating under the belief that the cloth might not make as much contact with her newly cleaned body, however it surely did. 

Sansa pulled the lock out of the door and went back to the living space, her towel folded neatly under her arm. 

Her housemate was dressed differently, she noticed, and he was no longer reading out of his book, or lounging on the sofa for that matter. Instead he sat at the table, in much more appropriate attire, she thought, with no rips or stains in the arms or torso. He sat patiently, like he’d been waiting for something. 

Sansa bowed her head softly to him, pausing away from the small dining table. “My thanks for the water and soap,” she said. 

He glanced down at her figure like she wasn’t even there, and then back up to her face, wordless with an unmoving expression, making his features even _more_ disagreeable, as if his demeanor did not accomplish that well enough already. 

Water dripped down from her hair and through the center of her back, soaking the cloth of her gown. She waited a few moments longer, considering that perhaps he would acknowledge her eventually— though he remained silent, and she dipped her head again before turning to go back to the room. He was completely and utterly mannerless, and each interaction with him only proved it to be further so! However, if she would say something kind about him... he could not be called thoughtless. It was a horribly confusing situation, for his words (or lack thereof!) to be so entirely offensive to her, and his actions to be… unequal in their evocation. 

“You shouldn’t have come out last night,” her housemate rasped when she was halfway down the hall, his voice stony. 

Sansa turned on her heel. “I shouldn’t have—? I came out to see if you were all right!”

His eyes were terribly frightening— so much more than the rest of his face, that was certain— and she made herself look away from him. 

“I _told you_ not to leave the room unless I knocked on the door. It was beyond stupid of you to come out, and if it was anyone except for me you’d be dead and tossed to the gutters.” 

She stung behind the eyes. “Then perhaps next time you’ll have the compassion not to storm through in the middle of the night and neglect to inform me that it was, in fact, _you_ who had entered!” 

“Is it not _my_ fucking house that you’re in?” 

“You said so yourself that it wasn’t your property!” 

Sandor stood up, and for a moment she became afraid for herself. 

It wasn’t like her to be so candid in her manner of speaking, and she took pride in her lawful politeness, even when she was upset… however what she’d said to him a moment ago had been anything but! 

Sansa stood frozen, leaning against the wall with her hands tight at her sides. She should’ve taken her dagger out with her, but perhaps she’d been so _witlessly_ naive to think that he was trustworthy because he had _yet_ to harm her. Though she didn’t think her dagger would do much to him anyway, if the vastness of his figure was any indication of his indestructibility. 

Her housemate towered over her, though he still stood a few feet away. “My brother would rip you to bits with two fingers, and my father, likely worse. Don’t come out unless I tell you it’s all right, or find somewhere else to dwell.” 

She made haste to nod her understanding; really she would’ve done anything to persuade him in backing away from her. 

He turned toward the second door. She’d been wrong: there _were_ tears in his robes. 

Just like that he pretended as though nothing had happened between them. “I’m going to the city for an hour. Have to do some shopping, restocking and all.” _Shopping_ , she thought, _to the city_. “If you should want for—”

“May I accompany you?” Sansa folded her hands, stepping further into the kitchen. She would wear her cloak… and she would be with him, and they’d be out into the city— No one would suspect anything of her, and even if they did... surely no one would dare approach her with a person so large as himself nearby. And after all, how on earth could he expect her to be comfortable here _alone_ after what he’d just said of his own family? 

Sandor huffed, frowning at her. “You’ll be completely in my way.” 

“I won’t,” said Sansa, allowing herself to go a little closer to him. “I will keep to myself and not bother you at all. I’ve brought my own money, and I need to do some shopping for myself as well.” 

For the expression on his face, an onlooker would have thought she’d asked him to give her his own _hands_. He avoided her direction for a few moments, but her housemate ultimately succumbed. “Fine. Hurry up, or I’m off without you.” 

She curtsied with haste and fled back to the room to finish dressing. “Just give me a moment and I will be ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be _only one horse_ and... I admit I have this whole fic very well outlined (for once in my writing history *.*) but I’m currently struggling to decide if this au is going to have what I have deemed to be the trademark Sansa doing Sandor’s hair scene that my heart can’t get enough of (hint: it’s going to, it’s definitely definitely going to).


	5. Into the City

Though she would not admit it to him— instantly aware that he would think her even simpler than he already must have— by all rights, Sansa had believed that they would be riding to the city in a carriage. 

Or at the _very least_ that she’d be permitted her own horse. 

The reasons for which this belief arose were the results of yet another lapse in awareness regarding her updated situation, the fact that she was no longer a rich little lady in her adoptive uncle’s manor eluding her once again. 

No, both unfortunately for her and the contemptuous creature she was made to straddle ( _in a gown!_ ), there was indeed only one horse. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, as she wasn’t a very good rider anyway, and she was not lacking for another excuse for her housemate to look at her like she was an incompetent cretin. 

By God, she’d never _seen_ such a disagreeable animal!— thrashing and spitefully _unwilling_ to grace the humility of allowing a new rider to saddle him. And it was no wonder for who his owner was, was it? With a keeper as grudging and embittered as her housemate, there was no question as to where _exactly_ his horse had acquired his sour manners from. 

Sandor, whose velvety black stallion she saw more character resemblances with each passing moment, acted with everything in his power to make himself appear as though there was no _imaginable_ fate as unlucky as having to share his horse with her. He was a mess of utterly discontented sighs, of sideward glances and a miserably disinterested handle on the reins. 

For _him_ to behave in such a way when it was _she_ who had only been thus intruded on by a man once more in her life!— for _his_ legs to wrap against the backs of hers, _his_ hips to rest behind her bottom and _his_ arms all but using the leather reins to imprison her on the saddle, he acted as though he were the one at a loss. Thankfully for her, her housemate _at least_ afforded her the respectable distance between his chest and her back— however when his rabid animal happened upon undesirable terrain, the horse would buck and their bodies would crash together at the whim of momentum. 

Not to mention that if anyone, if _anyone_ saw her like this she would be entirely disgraced! To share a horse with a man, it was… thoroughly shameful for an unwed lady of her status. It was not unheard of for two lovers to share a horse if they could not each afford their own, but for _her_ to be seen as such… she would be declared a fallen woman! A hussy at first glance! 

As they turned from a forest enclosure, a fox raced across the dirt path and Sandor’s horse reared high into the air following a feral cry of exasperation and shock. Sansa’s hands grappled in the air for the leather reins about the animal’s shoulders so she might hope to cling rather than fall off, but before she could reach the ropes, Sandor’s body was against hers, pushing her into the horse’s smooth black neck. 

What she had not been prepared for, Sansa was most _humiliated_ to consider given the tumultuous circumstances, was the warmth that emanated from his chest. The absolute last possibility that she would’ve allowed her mind to entertain constituted the notion that her crass housemate would be so… that his body should feel such a way against hers. 

“Stranger— _Stranger! Down!_ ” Her housemate’s arms were entangled around the horse’s neck to keep the two of them steadily seated as the animal flailed his front legs. 

The horse planted his feet back on the ground after a moment, and the dirt flew up in flurries of dust. His ears cocked all the way back, and he shook his head, snorting as his thick black mane waved in the air. 

_Stranger_ , thought Sansa. It was the first time she’d heard it. 

Sandor lifted up from her unemotionally, adjusting his stance on the saddle and twisted the reins tighter under his grip while he left her to adjust herself without a word. 

Not a word from him. 

Sansa repositioned her cloak, which had gotten bundled and folded awkwardly in the turbulence. “Does he do that often?” she asked, keeping her eyes locked onto the trees to their side. 

“He doesn’t like other animals,” said her housemate flatly, twirling the reins between his fingers as they started on their way again. 

“I should think based on his attitude towards me that he’s not fond of other _people_ either.” 

Sandor laughed then, and the quickness of it, the stony sound of his voice made a chill run up her spine. She believed herself to have been thoroughly misguided to make any initial assumptions about his age based on the piercing texture of his speech. 

“Aye,” he said, sounding the closest to cheerful that she’d heard of him yet, “he doesn’t like people either, but he’s loyal enough. Men can’t hope to be half so companionable.” 

There was a word for his horse and it was _not_ companionable... though looking at their behavior towards each other, any onlooker with eyes would’ve seen him to be telling the truth.

Sansa watched as he outstretched a splayed hand to run his fingers over the neck of the black courser, dipping into the mane and offering a good scratch. The animal’s ears began to relax as he steadied forward through the dirt. 

“Where did you get him?” she asked. 

“Got him loose from his stable. I was a few towns over on business that my father had with the master. Saw the horse being whipped... and _kicked_ and… when the business was over I went back there and there was no hay left for him, water was murky— he was living in _squalor_.” She admitted the curiosity surrounding the empathy in his voice. “Took him away from there.” 

“You stole him?” asked Sansa. 

Her housemate kept silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, it was utterly flat. “You’ve got funny terms for stealing.” 

“No,” she tripped over herself suddenly, realizing that she had not conveyed herself how she had meant to, and... Well, perhaps it _was_ what she had meant to say though it wasn’t rooted in the same truths as the impulses were that drove her to speak in the first place.

“You highborn lot. Think you’re better than everyone else because you were _born_ with money—”

“No, no. No, that’s not true,” Sansa unfurled. “There is no correlation between rank and honor.” Not in the way she once thought there had been, at least. “I cannot believe I am better than anyone else by status. The value is found in character.” 

She waited for a short while, believing him to be contemplating a response, though he did not offer a reply. 

By her admission, Sansa began to wonder whether she had made mistakes regarding _his_ own character. It would’ve been a farce to declare that she had not made assumptions about him based on his looks and his attitude… though the truth was that she could not know anything about him so quickly. There was a time when her opinions were thoroughly black and white, and she would have named him thief in an instant for stealing a farmer’s horse… however that was no longer the case. Since the fateful night at the manor, she had become very conscious of the truth that acts considered villainous by the law… Well, it had donned on her that _evil_ was not so straightforward. Her housemate had been a thief and yet he was not the villain in his story, a notion she had previously thought impossible. 

Everything in her universe had become entirely grey. 

*****

The city came upon them in a storm, commencing slowly at first, accompanied by pitter patter and the thickening of the dewy air, however before any awareness could be gleaned, they were utterly engulfed. 

Sansa pulled her hood further over her face, shielding any straggling red locks from blazing against her pale skin and gown. 

Before she knew it, Stranger halted by a hitching post and Sandor rolled out from behind her and landed on his feet with a huff. His walnut-stained robes feathered against poorly conditioned breeches, stopping unnaturally short of his boots and instead resting a quarter of the way down his knee. 

He stuck out his forearm for her to grab onto, as though he were a brass railing beside a flight of stairs, and as she made that connection she did not have it in her heart to take offense at him behaving with such little chivalry, which she otherwise very well might have, as to withhold the offering of his hand. 

“Put your foot into the stirrup,” said Sandor, holding his arm steadily in place as she shifted her weight into it. “That’s it, toss your other leg over.” 

Sansa placed her other hand on his shoulder, and his eyes blazed harshly, only for a moment. She stood there, one foot in the stirrup while the other dangled loosely, and permitted herself the briefest glance at his face now that they were both in the sunlight and at eye level for the first time since introduction. There was no denying the fact that his scarring _did_ look worse under the sun, however she did not find him so hard to look at despite them. It truly was his attitude that was unbearable— he was entirely too gruff, too short about _everything!_

She had been wrong about his eyes, she realized, leaning onto him. They had gone _softer_ just now, as her fingers splayed firmly against his overlarge shoulder, not harder. They were on fire, yes, though it was the sort of fire that simmered at midnight, after the sparkling had stopped, when the chaos was finally reduced to a tender heat. Two pools of quietly glowering coals, lit up yellow and orange and blue, pale blue… when she’d only ever seen them a joyless, lamentable blackish grey in the darkness of his residence.

Sansa allowed her curiosity to get the best of her propriety and looked at him with abandon. She would not _dream_ of presuming that it had been _her_ dainty hand on his shoulder that could ignite such a change in his demeanor, however _something_ had done so, and that was the only detail worth dwelling on for a moment. 

Stranger kicked his back leg and stomped it hard into the ground, and the momentum combined with her barely-there stance in the stirrup was enough to send her out of her way. 

If he noticed in time, she was not sure that he would have caught her. Either way he did not catch her or even soften the fall, and Sansa plummeted to the dirt, catching herself on hands and knees. 

Sandor produced a fragmented noise of exasperation at the sequence of events, trading glances between her and the horse before staring steadily at the black courser. 

“Damn you, Stranger!” 

Sansa lifted herself up from the ground, catching her breath as she wiped the dirt from her skirts. 

“Nasty bastard,” he muttered at the remorseless horse. “You hurt?” 

“I’m quite all right,” she said, repositioning her bodice. 

Her housemate tied Stranger to the hitching post and they walked into the arms of the city side by side. 

“It’s been some time since I’ve had the pleasure,” said Sansa, glancing with eyes alight on every bit of information that caressed her senses. It was true that she had not been to the city in ages, and therefore she was less skittish about the chances of being recognized… however she kept her hood drawn all the same, and her cloak kept tightly to conceal her gown. 

Her companion laughed, though not in pleasure. “Wish I could say the same for myself.” 

“Do you not like the city?” 

“Does shit stink?” 

Sansa cast her head quickly down quickly with a frown and glanced at the cobblestone pathway ahead of them. 

“Have you got that little blade with you?” he asked when they were in the center of the square, pausing her in the middle of the way. 

“Yes,” she told him, refusing to look up at his eyes again after the attempt at her dignity. The dagger was tucked into a specially sewn pocket within her robes; she was not _so_ stupid as to leave it behind and make herself entirely defenseless. 

“Good. I need to go shopping for a few things, but I’ll be back to the square in fifteen minutes. Until then I reckon you can handle yourself.” 

Sansa had no secondary choice but to nod and let him go off in the other direction, leaving her alone in the sea of townspeople flooding back and forth. She was not in any real danger being here in the middle of the day, however, by some odds, she managed to be surprised at his thoroughly _thoughtless_ decision to leave her here alone when they had arrived _together_. 

Though he was gone before she could voice any opinions on the matter, and Sansa was left staring directionless at the shops around her. A confectioner materialized into her frame of view and she rushed over to him hastily, prepared to acquire some more sweets for her coin. 

Normally she would’ve been so excited to strike up conversations with other ladies and speak to little children— and she did see _so_ many people that she wanted to talk to!— though she knew that it was not a strategic idea at _all_ to help remain undercover and she made herself be quiet, only engaging with the shop owners from whom she was purchasing goods from. 

Most of the things that she needed were accessed with relative ease: the parchment, the powders, the soap and cloth. The most grievous was finding a new pair of outfits. Though Sansa was polite enough not to say so aloud, she did not have any fondness for the simpler sort of garb, having only been accustomed to finery for her entire life thus far… until now. 

These clothes were… cheaply made and astonishingly colorless and most unfathomable of all, there was _no one there_ to fit them to the ladies! How was she supposed to know if it felt correct if there were _no_ handmaidens to tailor them to the body, or at least help her get into them for a sampling? 

Though, she was most desperate for something clean to wear, so Sansa purchased two shifts, two bodices and one petticoat. That would give her wiggling room between restoring her clothes, she hoped, though she did not have any experience in that department as it was. 

After that, she was quite done, truthfully! And she had _already_ tired of being out here. It was euphoric to experience the open air like a real person again, as the last time she’d been able to do so was long before her arrival at her current place of staying... if she had any rights the implcations _._

Sansa was curious as to what her housemate had bought for himself as she looked around in the crowd for him; it took a moment, but there were few people who were as tall and miserable as he was, and his black head of hair poked up from the blur of several others’. 

She could tell that he could not see her, so she moved away from the crowd and waited for him back in their original pathway. As he neared, his expression remained course as ever, though when he made eye contact with her at last, the frown inscripted into his mouth softened ever so slightly. 

He was carrying several brown parcels. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was sort of by accident but it’s the second year in a row I’ve posted at 1am on my birthday, and I’m very glad because I needed the fanfic therapy. Not that this was very fluffy, however I’m thinking about the future fluff I have in store for u all and it was enough to tie me over for an interview I have tomorrow, so yay for fanfic therapy <3


	6. The Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: implied sexual assault (nightmare format)  
> CW: blood/light gore
> 
> There’s no mention of sexual assault after the nightmare concludes, so if anyone would like to ignore that, you can scroll to where Sandor meets Sansa in the hallway and you won’t have missed very much! However the blood imagery does persist for a while because _wound tending_.

The room was cold, _cold as ice_ , harboring a blackness thick enough to feign tangibility, however all she could feel on her hands when she lifted them was a warm, heavy dew that pressed her to the mattress and kept her clothes sticking to her skin. 

“ _Cat_ ,” purred a haunting voice once, and then again. “ _Cat… Cat…_ ”

It did not sound like her name, though within the unsteady embrace of intoxicant there were no means by which she could be sure. 

She squirmed back in the drought of light, forcing her hands to grapple for anything within a stretching arm’s distance that might be used to preserve her body. 

There was no such thing. 

“ _Cat_ ,” came the hoarse voice again from somewhere so deep in the throat that the sound could only _claw_ its way out from his interior. “ _Cat_ ,” again, as he dug the tips of ten oiled fingernails into her flesh and shredded her open, a dull pounding urging him on.

She pulled her head away from him, leaning back, wincing when her blood began to trickle down the sides of her naval, flowing out into a pool from the insides of her legs and staining the silk sheets scarlet. 

The gutteral wetness of his dead voice made her throat dry and clog with clay, and as the opaque air descended on her skin, she found that she could not distinguish whether her eyes were open or closed. As she tried to breathe, she did not think that the air was getting into her lungs. 

His breath was hot against her chest, and he pushed his fingers harder, _deeper_ , making her lifeblood pour out like hot syrup. The more of it that spilled out of her the less sturdy her grasp on reality became, and her head began to spin and drift back deeply into the tough velvet cushion that it rested upon... And he _smelled! Good God,_ he _smelled..._ like dirt, like decaying, infested meat in the sun. She turned her nose at the odor, tilting _away_ from it, away from _him_...

All she could hear was that _pounding,_ his heartbeat, or perhaps even hers... though truthfully she did not think either of them could be alive... 

That was the moment in which her eyes were finally able to open and she saw his finely smithed blade resting on the table, which he’d moments before used to slit her clothes open. 

He could not see her as she began to take her lacerated hand back into ownership, as he was far too preoccupied with the ministrations of his own sets of fingers as they sank into quickly rotting flesh. 

Sansa watched him carefully, reaching back further… further… 

A furious pound on the door roused her from her sleep. 

Sansa shot up to a seat in the bed, her head pounding. She clutched quickly at her clothes to make sure that all of it was still there, that her arms and legs and belly were not sticky with spilled lifeblood, that she had no open wounds, that she was unbroken. There was a protrusive wetness on her palm that stung to her sweating touch, and it took her but a moment to discover that at some point while she slept, she’d been gripping the wrong end of her dagger. 

The knock on her door arose again, only this time it was reduced to a firm, but not intrusive, rapping of the knuckles, leaving her to question whether it had ever been louder than this after all. 

“Have you woken?” came the voice of Sandor, and a breath pressed from her chest. That it had been _his_ stony rasping voice to fill her ears had induced a doubtless relief when considering the lack thereof of voices she could not bear to hear. 

Sansa lifted the quilt and stepped to the floor, pulling her gown away from her skin where it had plastered with sweat. The planked wood was cold against her feet. 

The first thing she did was light a candle, in deep need of being able to see the room… her surroundings, which she held closely under a palm. 

She reached to pull the lock out of the door and a pit broke in her chest upon the realization that she’d not _remembered_ to lock it before retiring! And yet he had not opened it when he could have. 

Sansa pulled the door open, twirling the outward hem of her gown under her fingers. “What is it?” 

Her housemate stood on the other end, a hard look on his face. “You were screaming,” he said. 

“Screaming?” Sansa repeated. She’d been screaming? 

“Wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t true. Reckoned you were having a nightmare.” 

A nightmare, indeed. She shivered in recollection. “You were... pounding,” she said, remembering the dull rap of his knuckles on the wood, coaxing her from her dream with a start. The images from her sleep were fading rapidly with each passing moment, though she could still hear that mocking rhythm of a beating heart, trying to trick her into believing her own mortality. 

“No I wasn’t,” he told her, though he must’ve been confused, it was a miscommunication. His gaze passed over her hand and his eyes widened a miniscule. “And you’re bleeding.” 

She glanced at her hands; she’d forgotten all about the cut, but it was exactly as she had imagined it— she had grabbed the tooth of her dagger in the middle of the night. It was deepest at the respective edges of her palm, shallow in the hallowed center, and the surrounding space burned raw to the touch.

“Got something for that. If you want.” 

Sansa stared at him behind the doorway, her head cloudy with bloody fingers and spilled wine and torn clothes and _him_ … her housemate, dark and disheveled and hulking in the blackness of the hallway, but monumentally more enticing than the hopeless melanoid loneliness of her guest room. She nodded, swiping single-handedly at her tear-streaked cheeks and managing a lifeless bow of her head, a fallen attempt at courtesy that her own mother would’ve scolded her for, and yet he did not acknowledge it. She found it in herself to wonder what her mother would’ve thought of her housemate’s manners... though her curiosity was dismissed as he began to walk away from her.

They went to the kitchen, where she propped her candle onto the table and sat down as he went off to rummage in his things. Sandor came back shortly after and placed a handful of materials onto the wood surface of the table. She recognized the clear, contained liquid from her bath, along with the salve he’d given her for the small lacerations on her hands. 

He sat down at the other side and began to uncork the jar. “What did you dream?”

Sansa’s head spun with memories… of the truths within her nightmare, and some of the details that had been tattered with or misplaced altogether. She could not think of anything to say. 

“It’s the murderer they’re talking about that keeps me up,” he said, though she reckoned him to be mocking when he began to laugh. “Is that what’s got you?”

In a manner of speaking, yes. 

Sandor’s eyes flashed to hers as he waited for her response, though he set them on her hand upon the assumable realization that he would not receive one. He pushed the open jar towards her, and the strips of cloth. “That should do it.” 

Her housemate started to get up and leave and as Sansa watched him, a panic settled in her stomach. Truly she didn’t want to be alone after her nightmare… however, she was also entirely unacquainted with tending to her own wounds, and regardless how could she have done it all with just one hand to work with? 

“Wait!” Sansa yelped, turning in her seat. 

He turned to look at her, his mouth hardening into a cruel and impatient frown… though it was his dark, joyless eyes that made her cower. 

“Forgive me,” Sansa breathed. She’d manage well enough doing it herself. 

“What is it?” He waited a moment before stiffening impatiently. “Go on, spit it out.” 

She made herself look at his eyes. “Forgive me,” again, with a small drop of her head this time, “only I wonder if you… could help.” 

Her housemate paused, letting out a long breath. “Aye. All right.” He lowered to the neighboring seat, forcing a creak out of the planked wooden floor. “Turn your hand over.” 

When she did so, he upturned the uncorked container over onto a thick piece of cloth, eliciting a sharp scent of disinfectant. The forefinger of his free hand pressed down to keep her fingers in place and a strange rush shot through her at the contact, making her twitch. His touch brought a pleasant warmth to her, the same inappropriate— fevered as it was, very fevered— sensation from when he’d wrapped around her on horseback… however far less. Unsatisfyingly less, she was loathe to even _consider_. 

It seemed to get him, too, suppose his manner of breathing was any indication; his lips parted as they shared that small touch, and his breath was coming and going quickly from his lips. There was something very... fascinating, about the way that his face moved, the way that his deep grey eyes locked onto the torn up skin of her hand, the haste of his chest as he struggled to concentrate, the trembling heat of his touch as they connected. 

“It’s sure to sting at first,” he said, unconcerned with a response before pushing the soaked cloth into the slit in her palm. 

It did sting— badly, familiar to the melting of her blood by the fire after a long day playing in the snow. Sansa yanked her hand back, cradling it under the other. 

Her housemate was unmoved, however seemingly surprised by her unwillingness to withstand the pain. “I told you it would hurt.” 

Sansa looked up to his face, watching his tired eyes flick over the contents of the table, her hand, the candle, her blood, her hand, the table. “You did say that,” she said, releasing a shallow breath before laying her open hand reluctantly back across the space. 

He held the tips of her fingers back once again and pressed the bloodied cloth to the wound. She watched as the alcohol dissolved into her bloodied flesh, tugging out the pigment and staining her pale skin a violent crimson that he did his best to wipe up. Though not all of it would come off… whether it was a result of his own lack of precision or because her expelled lifeblood had perforated her skin that deeply. The disinfectant stung that time, too, though she tolerated it with an audible wince and the clenching of her other fist. 

“That was better,” said Sandor, looking quickly to her eyes. He grabbed the metal container of salve and twisted the top. “This won’t hurt as much.” 

It didn’t hurt as much inherently, though a few times he accidentally scraped the laceration and caused her to cry out, the sound of which incited plain alarm in his face. He used the strips of cloth to wrap it up for her at the end, whereas she could not have managed to do it single-handedly, and bound the fabric at the back with a knot.

Sansa took her hand back and placed it in her lap. 

“Better?” he asked, gazing at her curiously under the faint candlelight. 

“Yes,” said Sansa. “Thank you for your help.” His assistance had gotten her a few minutes of company, though the thought of going back to her guest room to be alone did not soothe her one bit. “Sandor,” she said gently, provoking the unknown syllables of his name and tasting their candor aloud on her tongue, “do you think that I could sit with you for awhile?” 

Her housemate blinked. “What for?” 

She glanced down at her bandaged hand, at the warm yellow discoloration that the flame cast on the white cloth. And then to the red-brown bloodied strips of fabric that he’d used to wipe the wound clean moments before.

“Your nightmare, is that it?” he asked.

Sansa nodded, her gaze pinned to the table. 

“Aye,” her housemate sighed, recorking the container of disinfectant and gathering the rest of the supplies for cleanup. “Stay out here if you’d like. Only for awhile.” 

He retreated to the water closet a final time to return the tools for sterilization, and then they sat across from each other at the table, he with his chair pulled far away and facing the side of the room enveloped in blackness. She could not say what it was in the swallowing blackness that intrigued him so, however her eyes were latched onto him, onto the rusty spoiled red-brown stains bordering the tears in his shirtsleeves, onto his matted onyx waves of hair, onto the much better looking side of his face that he left towards her. 

“You sleep with the dagger under your pillow, do you?” he asked her, breaking the dull silence with his stony voice. 

Sansa did not respond. 

“It’s clever,” he told her. “It’s a smart idea. Have you not got a sheath for it?” 

“No,” said Sansa. She could not find the sheath when she’d taken it. 

He gave a grumble in response, and she thought that he was done talking although after a pause he spoke again. “My mother used to sing me back to sleep after a nightmare.”

Sansa’s eyes locked onto his at the admission, though he did not look at her. 

“But she died before the real ones began.” 

Her heart ached for him then, it would’ve been folly to believe anything to the contrary. Perhaps it was not _him_ that dejected her, per se, however she understood keenly the loss of a mother, and even if their situations were unsimilar in the specifics from that angle, she was human after all, and anything but incapable of empathy.

“My mother is dead, too,” said Sansa, stroking the cloth of her bandage with her little finger. She had meant to tell him that her father was dead as well, her siblings… although she could not bring herself to talk about her father, her heart could not allow the recollection of him… and she didn’t want to think about Arya, or the others. Her throat felt dry and raw, soaked with stinging bloody alcohol and left ashy with coal, and her body four stone heavier. The weight settled in her lungs, pressing insistently against her stomach.

Sandor looked over at her from what had seemed a most intriguing blackness, his somber silver pools landing directly and fearlessly on her eyes. For a moment, routine had made her expect him to unleash that quintessential, coarse mockery that often seduced his manners… however not even he could be so cruel— the understanding of which imprinted a guilt in her for fear that perhaps she’d been unfair to expect such minimal compassion from him… though the history of their interactions left her rather undecided. 

“I wish my father was dead,” said her housemate, gazing back off. “Sometimes I wish I could cut his throat myself.” 

Sansa’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I cannot believe that to be true.” 

He raised his brow, looking at the planked floor. “Aye, you’d believe it if you knew him. For your sake, I hope you remain unacquainted.” 

She stroked the frilly edges of her bandage. “I do not intend to intrude on you, do you believe it? I did not have the pleasure of time to come up with a second choice of arrangements and when I entered,” she neglected to use the term ‘break-in’ which would’ve been far more accurate in the situation, “well, I really did not think there would be someone else residing here.” 

“ _Here_ ,” he repeated, making a hoarse, cruel noise that she supposed to be a laugh. “A piece of shit, I know.” 

“How did you select it?” 

“Same reasons you broke in, I reckon,” His eyes were hard against hers. “Didn’t think anyone would come bothering me here, wanted my own privacy, wanted to be alone.” His demeanor softened after the final bit; he had not achieved what he wanted to, which, frankly, had been clear rather early on. They had both wanted to be alone here, however she thought that his presence, strategically speaking, was an advantage... seeing as she had no notion of life on her own, and especially not a life in circumstances as such. Guilt arose in her under the knowledge that really she did not bring him any advantages; she was only a nuisance... taking his bed, his food, putting him at risk for whatever tumult roused his relationship with his family, and having nothing to offer him herself. 

“As for the former, don’t worry yourself about it,” he started again. “You’re not putting me out a great deal… other than taking my bed, being unversed in cooking, cleaning… eating my food and pissing off my horse. Other than that, you’re no burden at all.” There was that mockery in his voice again, that explicitly unveiled resentment and disapproval, and all of it illuminated what had already been conscious insecurities of hers!

“I can pay you,” Sansa breathed, “for the food… and the medical supplies I’ve borrowed. I have money to pay you.” She would run out, of course, but she did have some that she could chip in. 

“I don’t want your coin. You want to start all the fires,” he nodded to the hearth, “we’ll call ourselves even.” 

“I… don’t know how to make fires,” she admitted, the pit in her stomach ever growing. 

Her housemate glanced to the empty hearth and shrugged. “It was a jest. I’m not fond of fires in any case.” 

He turned to her full on to lay his elbows on the wood and she saw a glimpse of the twisted pink and red and rusty mess of his cheek before he covered it under his palm. It occurred to her, in a blitz of delirious curiosity, a potential reason for which he was not fond of fires. She had never seen such a burn wound on anyone, however it was possible, was it not? Regardless, nothing could’ve persuaded her to press the subject further. 

She looked over to the dark hearth. They would need fires eventually— in fact, they needed them _now!_ Winter was right under their noses. 

Sandor must’ve noticed her unease. “Don’t shit yourself,” he said. “If you’re around come winter, I won’t easily let either of us freeze. And either way I’ve got to cook before then, haven’t I?”

Sansa shook her head. This would be something for _her_ to do, to prove her competence and at the very least help her sleep easier knowing that she was contributing _something_ to their arrangement at the very least. “I will make the fires…” offered Sansa. “If you teach me how to, I will make the fires.” 

Her housemate raised his brow. “You want to make them?” 

She didn’t _want_ to, per se… though she did yearn for the heat, for more warmth than the quilt on his bed and her cloak around her arms. The fires would be a welcome reminder of her family, her childhood, _home_ — her and Arya and Robb and Jon sitting cross-legged in front of the blazing hearth after a day of playing in the snow, warming their hands and feet in front of the flames as they sipped on steaming cups of hot chocolate and argued over who had _truly_ won the snowball fight.

“Yes,” nodded Sansa. 

“Aye, all right. We’ll start tomorrow.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a long birthday week but my interview went very well and I’m quite optimistic!
> 
> I did research on how long Europeans have been drinking hot chocolate and damn— dudes have been enjoying a _delicacy_ for four hundred years. I’m sure what they were drinking was better than Swiss Miss could ever hope for— or at least my girl Sansa was, in like a Turkish-delights-from-Narnia type of way, you know?
> 
> Putting this out there because my playlist is a Disaster right now, but if this fic was a sitcom, the theme song would be Just What I Needed by the Cars. I first stumbled upon that song back when I started writing this in *gasp* November, and it fit so perfectly I couldn’t even believe! Except for the fact that Sandor’s vibe is wayyyy off— hence: sitcom. Equally, Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads (lmao the vibes, the vibes).
> 
> Finally, this fic is not beta’d!— but as the plot is so heavy I’d love love love if anyone was willing to offer a set of eyes before each chapter, or just talk to me about the plot ahshsdsajsahd so many decisions ;_; !— if you are interested please please send me a message on discord or tumblr please thank you.


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